When co-principalships were initiated in Aotearoa/New Zealand during the 1990s, they
encountered a range of issues around this country?s new public management
requirements for market, managerial and split governance/management
accountabilities. This article draws on a case study of one initiative to discuss how
elements of these requirements were variously challenged and co-opted by three
teaching co-principals and their board of trustees. They established in their small
primary school inclusive practices of shared leadership and mutual responsibility that
took account of ethical and moral issues overlooked in the NZNPM discourse. The
article endorses warnings that ethical forms of professional collegiality and trusting
relationships, which have been found to be important in the development of effective
teaching and learning environments, can be constrained by managerial surveillance
and market mechanisms for accountability. |